Her Solidarity
It was becoming all too predictable. Wake up groggy with a head full of haunts and a heart full lead.
Wait.
The waiting was the worst because she always woke up too early, but sleep never stayed with her long. She would get up and brush her hair, wash her face and practice smiling. "Good morning!"
Her voice sounded strained, even to her own pitch deprived ears. She would clear her throat and try again; "Good morning." See, wasn't that much better?
Then she would wait again, sitting on the edge of her bed obediently until she heard the tell tale noises down the hall. She blessed that bent wheel that rattled the cart so boisterously. The door would groan and swing open teasingly to reveal-
Then she lets it out; the breath she had held at the first sounds of the cart. It was another servant today.
It had been three days since the events on the spire, yet no matter how many times Inoue turned the scenes about in her head she could never quite figure out what it was she had done so terribly wrong.
Had it been her touch? Was Ulquiorra so reviled by the thought of their skin meeting? But she had touched him before and never seen him react so violently.
Could it have been what she had said, her questions about his death? It seemed likely, but he had answered her calmly enough. Or had it simply been a combination of all the things she had done and said that evening.
She had been bold, surprisingly so even to herself. But she had felt more like herself that night then she had in a while and had perhaps taken her curiosity too far. Taking her up there to see the moon…it was probably the most considerate thing anyone had done for her since she had arrived here. And though Ulquiorra may not have truly understood what such a view and a trip might have meant to her, ultimately he had gone out of his way to take her there; he had tried to fulfil the bargain they had struck, the one she had almost forgotten about.
"If you promise that you will take more care for your well-being I will try to help you feel better."
He had managed to go about helping her with a surprisingly innate action. And yet she had angered him so, to the point where he would actually desist from seeing her on a daily basis out of…what, disgust? Animosity?
She knew she should give it up. He was technically her enemy, a hollow no less. A creature as far from her physical state as possible. They're values never aligned; where he desired dominance and power she only craved a friendly face and a feeling of home. And while her heart pulsed so loudly with life at night that she could hear it beating in her ears, Ulquiorra was enveloped in silence.
But even with the odds and reasoning stacked against her, and even if he always treated her as a task, as an inferior being…Ulquiorra was the closest thing she had to a companion in this place and no matter the reason, he had attempted to help her by way of a pact, one she had agreed to.
"A man's word is his honour." She exclaimed, clenching her fists in sudden excitement. The servant that waited attentively at the end of the room only looked up at her sudden outburst before returning his eyes to the floor.
Inoue squared her shoulders, unperturbed by the lacking response, before she picked up her fork and began to eat enthusiastically, as if her very life depended upon its consumption.
--
"Nothing. There is nothing." Ulquiorra's fingers retracted from his chest slowly. He glanced at them momentarily as they hovered before him, his eyes roving over their starch folds before he shoved them into the deeper recesses of his robe's pockets. If he had been more prone to letting his emotions manifest he might have laughed at himself. But he couldn't even find the humour in his sudden obsession.
His pockets were just a distraction, a hold to keep his hands trapped within. He kept them twisted into fists so that they might not creep out with their own intent to press disquieted fingers against his trespassed flesh. He had been doing it for the last three days; trying to re-enact that moment, to understand exactly what she had done to him.
But it just wasn't the same. When he placed his own hands over his hollowed chest there was nothing, only the registration of his hand pressing against the chasm. There was none of the warmth or sound that had erupted within him on the spire.
He had heard her. As soon as her palm had sealed off the hole in his chest the world had become deafening, suffocating even. Through that small moment of contact he had heard the verve that was within her, could hear her heart beating rapidly, her muscles moving, stretching, her breath swelling in her chest, the pumping of her blood through tiny veins that ran through her body like a vast root system – he had heard life itself existing within her frail body.
Through the warmth of her hands and the heat emanating from her body he had even been able to taste her, to understand her. Her optimism, her curiosity, her sorrow for being lonely, her yearning thoughts about being so far from home, the fear of living in a place so unlike what she had always known, the boredom and anxiety and the small things that she interacted with daily to keep her sane.
He had understood all of this within only a few of her palpitating heart beats. Through the connection of touch from his hole to her hand he had received a glimpse within her human mind and it had awoken a faint echoing of remembrance within him. He had actually recalled some of the emotions he had deadened when he had become an Espada…
Ulquiorra physically reeled back from the thought. That wasn't for him, that wasn't the path he had chosen. He could gain nothing by chasing such useless thoughts. He had severed the ties to his human side when he had taken up the hollow mantle. Like an amputee, he could remember the sensations of movement but it was useless to remember the motions when there was no vessel with which to move through. His heart was only groping after the scent of life with ghost fingers.
"Feelin a lil' under the weather are we?" Ulquiorra only turned his head slightly to greet Gin as he approached. There was something about Gin that Ulquiorra never trusted (not that he really trusted anybody). He thought it was that smile of his, it was just too big. It was mocking and sinister; a combination he was not entirely in favour of.
"No, there is nothing out of order."
The edges of the grin spread impossibly further, "I figured there must be somethin' up if even Ulquiorra were shirking his duties. It'd be fine o' course, if yer weren't up for it anymore. There are plenty of other hollow's in the sea to take care of the lil' misses in yer stead. If that was what you wanted o' course."
Ulquiorra stood a moment longer in held silence, staring deeply into that undefinable mask that was the ex-shinigami's face, before shrugging and turning away.
"There is no need to go to such extremes. I will continue to monitor the charge until such a point where she is no longer needed. I have been careful to preserve her well being as requested."
Ulquiorra didn't bother to look back or wait for a reply from Gin as he strode down the corridor. But as he rounded the next bend his hand retrieved itself from his left pocket to treacherously cover the exposed hole on his chest.
The only sound he heard as walked towards his charge's cell was the click, click, click of his shoes on the stone floor. Nothing more.
--
